My Initial Intentions
THIS letter is grown to a great length, though it is indeed short with regard to the infinite extent of the
subject. Various avocations have from time to time called my
mind from the subject. I was not sorry to give myself leisure to observe whether, in the proceedings of the National Assembly, I might not find reasons to change or to qualify some of my first sentiments. Everything has confirmed me more strongly in my first opinions. It was my
to take a view of the principles of the National Assembly with regard to the great and fundamental establishments; and to compare the whole of what you have
substituted in the place of what you have destroyed, with the several members of our British constitution. But this plan is of a greater extent than at first I computed, and I find that you have little desire to take the advantage of any examples. At present I must content myself with some
remarks upon your establishments; reserving for another time what I proposed to say concerning the spirit of our British monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as practically they exist.

Nature Of The New Governors
I have taken a view of what has been done by the governing
power in France. I have certainly spoken of it with freedom.
Those whose principle it is to despise the ancient,
permanent sense of mankind, and to set up a scheme of
society on new principles, must naturally expect that such
of us, who think better of the judgment of the human race
than of theirs, should consider both them and their devices,
as men and schemes upon their trial. They must take it for
granted that we attend much to their reason, but not at all
to their authority. They have not one of the great
influencing prejudices of mankind in their favour. They avow
their hostility to opinion. Of course they must expect no
support from that influence, which, with every other
authority, they have deposed from the seat of its
jurisdiction.

I can never consider this Assembly as anything else than a
voluntary association of men, who have availed them-selves
of circumstances to seize upon the power of the state. They
have not the sanction and authority of the character under
which they first met. They have another of a very different nature; and have completely altered and inverted
all the relations in which they originally stood. They do
not hold the authority they exercise under any
constitutional law of the state. They have departed from the
instructions of the people by whom they were sent, which
instructions, as the Assembly did not act in virtue of any
ancient usage or settled law, were the sole source of their
authority. The most considerable of their acts have not been
done by great majorities; and in this sort of near , which carry only the constructive authority of the
whole, strangers will consider reasons as well as
resolutions.

If they had set up this new, experimental government, as a
necessary substitute for an expelled tyranny, mankind would
anticipate the time of prescription, which, through long
usage, mellows into legality governments that were violent
in their commencement. All those who have affections which
lead them to the conservation of civil order would
recognise, even in its cradle, the child as legitimate,
which has been produced from those principles of cogent
expediency to which all just governments owe their birth,
and on which they justify their continuance. But they will
be late and reluctant in giving any sort of countenance to
the operations of a power, which has derived its birth from
no law and no necessity; but which on the contrary has had
its origin in those vices and sinister practices by which
the social union is often disturbed and sometimes destroyed.
This Assembly has hardly a year's prescription. We have
their own word for it that they have made a . To
make a revolution is a measure which, prima fronte,
requires an apology. To make a revolution is to subvert the
ancient state of our country; and no common reasons are
called for to justify so violent a proceeding. The sense of
mankind authorizes us to examine into the mode of acquiring
new power, and to criticise on the use that is made of it,
with less awe and reverence than that which is usually
conceded to a settled and recognised authority.

In obtaining and securing their power, the Assembly proceeds
upon principles the most opposite to those which appear to
direct them in the use of it. An observation on this
difference will let us into the true spirit of their
con-duct. Everything which they have done, or continue to
do, in order to obtain and keep their power, is by the most
common arts. They proceed exactly as their ancestors of
ambition have done before them. Trace them through all their
artifices, frauds, and violences, you can find nothing at
all that is new. They follow precedents and examples with
the punctilious exactness of a pleader. They never depart
an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny and
usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to the
public good, the spirit has been the very reverse of this.
There they commit the whole to the mercy of untried
speculations; they abandon the dearest interests of the
public to those loose theories, to which none of them would
choose to trust the slightest of his private concerns. They
make this difference, because in their desire of obtaining
and securing power they are thoroughly in earnest; there
they travel in the beaten road. The public interests,
because about them they have no real solicitude, they
abandon wholly to chance: I say to chance, because their
schemes have nothing in experience to prove their tendency
beneficial.

We must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect, the
errors of those who are timid and doubtful of themselves
with regard to points wherein the happiness of mankind is
concerned. But in these gentlemen there is nothing of the
tender, parental solicitude, which fears to cut up the
infant for the sake of an experiment. In the vastness of
their promises, and the confidence of their predictions,
they far outdo all the boasting of empirics. The arrogance
of their pretensions in a manner provokes and challenges us
to an inquiry into their foundation.

No Ordinary Men
I am convinced that there are men of considerable parts
among the popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of
them display eloquence in their speeches and their writings.
This cannot be without powerful and cultivated talents. But
eloquence may exist without a proportionable degree of
wisdom. When I speak of ability, I am obliged to
distinguish. What they have done towards the support of
their system bespeaks no ordinary men. In the system itself,
taken as the scheme of a republic constructed for procuring
the prosperity and security of the citizen, and for
promoting the strength and grandeur of the state, I confess
myself unable to find out anything which displays, in a
single instance, the work of a comprehensive and disposing
mind, or even the provisions of a vulgar prudence. Their
purpose everywhere seems to have been to evade and slip
aside from difficulty. This it has been the glory of the
great masters in all the arts to confront, and to overcome;
and when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it
into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties;
thus to enable them to extend the empire of their science;
and even to push forward, beyond the reach of their original
thoughts, the landmarks of the human understanding itself.
Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the
supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who
knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us
better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam
voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our
nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our
helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to
an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to
consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to
be superficial. It is the want of nerves of understanding
for such a task, it is the degenerate fondness for tricking
short-cuts, and little fallacious facilities, that has in so
many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary
powers. They have created the late arbitrary monarchy of
France. They have created the arbitrary republic of Paris.
With them defects in wisdom are to be supplied by the
plenitude of force. They get nothing by it. Commencing their
labours on a principle of sloth, they have the common
fortune of slothful men. The difficulties, which they rather
had eluded than escaped, meet them again in their course;
they multiply and thicken on them; they are involved,
through a labyrinth of confused detail, in an industry
without limit, and without direction; and, in conclusion,
the whole of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and
insecure.

It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which has
obliged the arbitrary Assembly of France to commence their
schemes of reform with abolition and total destruction. (43) But is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? Your mob can do this as well at least as your
assemblies. The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand,
is more than equal to that task. Rage and phrensy will pull
down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and
foresight can build up in a hundred years. The errors and
defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. It
calls for little ability to point them out; and where
absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly to
abolish the vice and the establishment together. The same
lazy but restless disposition, which loves sloth and hates
quiet, directs the politicians, when they come to work for
supplying the place of what they have destroyed. To make
everything the reverse of what they have seen is quite as
easy as to destroy. No difficulties occur in what has never
been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the
defects of what has not existed; and eager enthusiasm and
cheating hope have all the wide field of imagination, in
which they may expatiate with little or no opposition.

Defects Of Comprehension
At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing.
When the useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and
what is superadded is to be fitted to what is retained, a
vigorous mind, steady, persevering attention, various powers
of comparison and combination, and the resources of an
understanding fruitful in expedients, are to be exercised;
they are to be exercised in a continued conflict with the
combined force of opposite vices, with the obstinacy that
rejects all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and
disgusted with everything of which it is in possession. But
you may object —

"A process of this kind is slow. It is not
fit for an assembly, which glories in performing in a few
months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming, possibly,
might take up many years."

Without question it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellencies of a method in which time is amongst the assistants, that its operation is slow,
and in some cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection
and caution are a part of wisdom, when we work only upon
inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty too,
when the subject of our demolition and construction is not
brick and timber, but sentient beings, by the sudden
alteration of whose state, condition, and habits, multitudes
may be rendered miserable. But it seems as if it were the
prevalent opinion in Paris, that an unfeeling heart. and an
undoubting confidence, are the sole qualifications for a
perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high
office. The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of
sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to
fear himself. It may be allowed to his temperament to catch
his ultimate object with an intuitive glance; but his
movements towards it ought to be deliberate. Political
arrangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only
wrought by social means. There mind must conspire with mind.
Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone
can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will
achieve more than our force. If I might venture to appeal to
what is so much out of fashion in Paris, I mean to
experience, I should tell you, that in my course I have
known, and, according to my measure, have co-operated with
great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not
been mended by the observations of those who were much
inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in
the business. By a slow but well-sustained progress, the
effect of each step is watched; the good or ill success of
the first gives light to us in the second; and so, from
light to light, we are conducted with safety through the
whole series. We see that the parts or the system do not
clash. The evils latent in the most promising contrivances
are provided for as they arise. One advantage is as little
as possible sacrificed to another. We compensate, we
reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to unite into a
consistent whole the various anomalies and contending
principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men.
From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity, but
one far superior, an excellence in composition. Where the
great interests of mankind are concerned through a long
succession of generations, that succession ought to be
admitted into some share in the councils which are so deeply
to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself
requires the aid of more minds than one age can furnish. It
is from this view of things that the best legislators have
been often satisfied with the establishment of some sure,
solid, and ruling principle in government: a power like that
which some of the philosophers have called a plastic
nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left it
afterwards to its own operation.

To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with a
presiding principle, and a prolific energy, is with me the
criterion of profound wisdom. What your politicians think
the marks of a bold, hardy genius, are only proofs of a
deplorable want of ability. By their violent haste and their
defiance of the process of nature, they are delivered over
blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every
alchymist and empiric. They despair of turning to account
anything that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of
remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair of
curing common distempers by regular methods, arises not only
from defect of comprehension, but, I fear, from some
malignity of disposition. Your legislators seem to have
taken their opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices,
from the declamations and buffooneries of satirists who
would themselves be astonished if they were held to the
letter of their own descriptions. By listening only to
these, your leaders regard all things only on the side of
their vices and faults, and view those vices and faults
under every colour of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true,
though it may seem paradoxical; but in general, those who
are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults,
are unqualified for the work of reformation: because their
minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and
good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the
contemplation of those things. By hating vices too much,
they come to love men too little. It is therefore not
wonderful, that they should be indisposed and unable to
serve them. From hence arises the complexional disposition
of some of your guides to pull everything in pieces. At
this malicious game they display the whole of their
quadrimanous activity. As to the rest, the paradoxes of
eloquent writers, brought forth purely as a sport of
fancy, to try their talents, to rouse attention and excite
surprise, are taken up by these gentlemen, not in the spirit
of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste
and improving their style. These paradoxes become with them
serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in
regulating the most important concerns of the state. Cicero
ludicrously describes Cato as endeavouring to act, in the
commonwealth, upon the school paradoxes, which exercised the
wits of the junior students in the Stoic philosophy. If this
was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him - in the manner of some persons who lived about his time — pede
nudo Catonem. Mr. Hume told me that he had from Rousseau himself the secrets of his principles of composition. That acute though eccentric observer had perceived, that to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must be
produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had
long since lost its effects; that giants, magicians,
fairies, and heroes of romance which succeeded, had
exhausted the portion of credulity which belonged to their
age; that now nothing was left to the writer but that
species of the marvellous which might still be produced, and
with as great an effect as ever, though in another way; that
is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and
in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and
unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. I believe, that
were Rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he
would be shocked at the practical phrensy of his scholars,
who in their paradoxes are servile imitators, and even in
their incredulity discover an implicit faith.

What The Assembly Has Done
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular
way, ought to give us ground to presume ability. But the
physician of the state, who, not satisfied with the cure of
distempers, undertakes to regenerate constitutions, ought to
show uncommon powers. Some very unusual appearances of
wisdom ought to display themselves on the face of the
designs of those, who appeal to no practice, and who copy
after no model. Has any such been manifested? I shall take a
view (it shall for the subject be a very short one) of what
the Assembly has done, with regard,

to see whether we can discover in any part of their schemes the portentous ability, which may justify these bold undertakers in the superiority which they assume over mankind.

Liberty
The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders
in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be
covered with the "all-atoning name" of liberty. In some people I see great liberty indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude. But what is
liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the
greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and
madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what
virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by
incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding
words in their mouths. Grand, swelling sentiments of liberty
I am sure I do not despise. They warm the heart; they
enlarge and liberalize our minds; they animate our courage
in a time of conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures
of Lucan and Corneille with pleasure.

Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of
popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of
moment; they keep the people together; they refresh the mind
in its exertions; and they diffuse occasional gaiety over
the severe brow of moral freedom. Every politician ought to
sacrifice to the graces; and to join compliance with reason.
But in such an undertaking as that in France, all these
subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail. To
make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the
seat of power; teach obedience: and the work is done. To
give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to
guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a
free government; that is, to temper together these opposite
elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work,
requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious,
powerful, and combining mind. This I do not find in those
who take the lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps they are
not so miserably deficient as they appear. I rather believe
it. It would put them below the common level of human
understanding. But when the leaders choose to make
themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their
talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no
service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators;
the instruments, not the guides, of the people. If any of
them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly
limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be
immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce
something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised
of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized
as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of
traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may
enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the
popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating
doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards
defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have
aimed.

Improvements By The National Assembly
But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that
deserves commendation in the indefatigable labours of this
Assembly? I do not deny that, among an infinite number of
acts of violence and folly, some good may have been done.
They who destroy everything certainly will remove some
grievance. They who make everything new, have a chance that
they may establish something beneficial. To give them credit
for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have
usurped, or which can excuse them in the crimes by which
that authority has been acquired, it must appear, that the
same things could not have been accomplished without
producing such a revolution. Most assuredly they might;
because almost every one of the regulations made by them,
which is not very equivocal, was either in the cession of
the king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the states, or
in the concurrent instructions to the orders. Some usages
have been abolished on just grounds; but they were such,
that if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they
would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of
any state. The improvements of the National Assembly are
superficial, their errors fundamental.

Example Of The British Constitution
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend
to our neighbours the example of the British constitution,
than to take models from them for the improvement of our
own. In the former they have got an invaluable treasure.
They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension
and complaint; but these they do not owe to their
constitution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy
situation owing to our constitution; but owing to the whole
of it, and not to any part singly — Owing in a great measure
to what we have left standing in our several reviews and
reformations, as well as to what we have altered or
superadded. Our people will find employment enough for a
truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding
what they possess from violation. I would not exclude
alteration neither but even when I changed, it should be to
preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance.
In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors.
I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the
style of the building. A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of
the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus fallible, rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune, or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aeronauts of France.